Google Chrome (tested v0.2.149.27)
Developer: Google
OS: Windows (Mac/Linux versions planned)
Price: Free
Site: Google.com/chrome
The world's introduction to Google's new web browser, Google Chrome, came in the form of an online comic. Drawn by Scott McCloud and filled with technical jargon like “garbage collection” and “source rendering engine,” the comic isn't particularly funny, and its language is a bit obscure for the general reader. Yet it quickly became the talk of technology blogs and web forums because it was proof of Google's next big move, this one aimed squarely at Microsoft and Mozilla's internet empires.
In hindsight, the development of Chrome was a no-brainer. Google's web applications are widely used and trusted by internet users of all stripes; it's not much of a jump to expect people to transfer their faith in Google to a web browser. But name recognition aside, do established players like Internet Explorer and Firefox have anything to worry about?
Opening Chrome for the first time reveals interface elements both strange and familiar. Like most modern browsers, Chrome uses tabs as an organizing paradigm. But Chrome takes things a step further, moving tabs up into the space where the window title bar used to be. In general, Chrome's interface has been trimmed down to provide only the bare minimum of controls and displays necessary – along with the title bar, the status bar at the bottom of the window has also disappeared, as have most of the address toolbar's controls. This minimalist approach works well, and takes very little time to get used to.
Most of Chrome's obvious features are borrowed from other browsers. When opening a new tab, Chrome shows you a grid of your most viewed pages; this page is an improved version of Opera's Speed Dial interface. Chrome's address bar auto-completion, called the Omnibar, is a take-off of Firefox's address bar. Chrome's “incognito” feature, allowing you to open a private browser window that stores no cookies or history, is similar to functionality planned for Internet Explorer 8, as well as Safari's private browsing feature.
In fact, aside from Chrome's ability to create desktop shortcuts to your favourite web applications like Google Reader and Facebook, very little about Chrome feels truly new or radical. Rather, it mixes together some of the best bits from other browsers and bakes them into one product. Chrome is not supposed to revolutionize the Internet browsing experience, then; it's the machinery underneath that Google believes will set Chrome apart from its competitors.
Chrome's biggest asset is its speed. Everything Chrome does, from starting up to loading new tabs to running complex JavaScript, feels faster. One of the reasons is Chrome's new JavaScript engine, V8. Thanks to V8's innovations, Google's own tests show Chrome performing complex JavaScript benchmarks twice as fast as Firefox 3 and a beta build of Safari 4. This is especially important for JavaScript-heavy web applications like Google's own Maps and Gmail applications. No wonder Google focused on getting the JavaScript engine right.
Interestingly, Firefox has an ace up its sleeve – a new JavaScript engine of its own called TraceMonkey. The engine is already in alpha builds of the upcoming Firefox 3.1. Preliminary tests on several benchmarks vary widely, with TraceMonkey occasionally beating V8, and V8 occasionally trouncing TraceMonkey. With both Chrome and Firefox 3.1 still months away from final release, the real performance showdown will have to wait. For now, though, Chrome is the faster product.
This advantage doesn't always carry over to memory use, however. Google boasts that Chrome's system of creating a new application process for new tabs, versus the old-fashioned method of handling all tabs in a single process, means Chrome can be more ruthless at managing resources. This translates into mixed results when compared to Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7, and Opera 9.5 comes out ahead of Chrome more often than not. Where Chrome shines is in freeing up memory that's no longer needed; closing tabs frees up memory far more reliably than in other browsers.
Because almost everyone already has a favourite web browser, the question isn't just whether Chrome is worthy on its own merits, but whether its charms are enough to get you to switch. Firefox users may find themselves torn between Chrome's speed improvements on the one hand, and its lack of accommodation for extensions on the other. Power users with many extensions will probably stick with Firefox, as Chrome adds little in the way of compelling features to the table.
It's Internet Explorer users who will probably be most likely to switch. Between the Google brand, the larger performance advantage over Internet Explorer 7 and a better set of features, there's not much reason to stick with the most recent Microsoft browser besides the “if it ain't broke” argument. But no matter what browser you normally use, it's worth keeping an eye on Chrome's development – Google claims it's nowhere near done, and folly to those who don't believe them.
